New downtown sculptures in Vallejo double as bicycle racks

Reedy Pratt, left, and Jerry Coutee try and figure out what the newly installed art pieces on Virginia Street in Vallejo are used for. "It looks like Lance Armstrong," Coutee said. The brightly colored piece is actually public art that doubles as a bike rack.(Chris Riley/Times-Herald)

It's a pair of glasses, it's a man on fire, it's a piece of art promoting unsafe bicycle riding. Those are some of the guesses from Times-Herald Facebook fans when asked to identify a photo of new bike rack recently installed downtown.

More Facebook responders seemed to recognize the structure for what it is than those interviewed in person Wednesday.

A totally unscientific poll conducted outside Vallejo's Gracie's Family Barbecue on Virginia Street, found that few could tell what the yellow metal thing out front is.

"I'd like to see a bike attached to it, so I'd know," said Jerry Coutee of Suisun, 49, who, along with most passers-by and Gracie's customers Wednesday afternoon, said he at first assumed it was a piece of statuary. "I never saw anything like that."

Gracie's owner Ken Ingersol said its uniqueness is exactly what he likes best about the bike rack.

Though most people interviewed said they like the new rack, which was installed last week along with a similar red one across the street at Ray Prather's Victory Stores, not everyone appreciates it.

"It's ugly to me," said Vallejo native Ralph Kenyon, 90. "It detracts from the city. It's ridiculous and the color makes it worse."

The color is the one complaint Ingersol said he's heard since a private-public partnership made the project possible.

"I'm really happy with them," Ingersol said, of the racks installed to replace one destroyed by a driver who ran a red light and drove onto the sidewalk in front of Gracie's late last summer.

"That gave me the opportunity to do something different," he said. "I did some research -- Googled bike rack art -- and found this design and I thought it looked cool. I took it to Carl Uebner of Uebner & Byerrum whose father founded his blacksmith shop nearly 100 years ago when Broadway was Highway 40, and he recreated the design."

Public Works Director David Kleinschmidt helped facilitate the process and local businessman Buck Kamphausen donated the needed power-coating, so the two racks cost about $750 each, Ingersol and Prather said.

"It's functional art. It resembles a bike. It's somebody in motion, so it promotes a healthy lifestyle when you look at it -- that's what Kleinschmidt said," Ingersol said. "It's eye-catching because of the colors."

Ingersol said he's sure bike riders will instantly know the thing's function and, in fact, several customers used it over the weekend. And it's creating buzz, he said.

"People comment on it all the time," he said, and Prather said he's seeing the same reaction.

"A lot of people are looking at them and talking about it," Prather said. "One kid stood on it and his mother took a picture. It gets people talking about the store, and that's good."

Prather said he liked that a Vallejo business was used to make the structures and hopes other business owners in town will opt to install one also.

"I think it's cool. It has that cool factor," he said. "It's appealing, refreshing, like something different for the area; gives it a little spark."